Spring sowing in the garden

What is a seedling?

A bit of terminology.

In principle, this operation consists of burying seeds to give new plants.
Question of terminology, we do not plant seeds we sow them, that is to say that we distribute them over a space (we also sow a fertilizer in granular or powder form). Planting involves making a hole to install a plant.
So we plant potatoes, garlic, bulbils of onions. For the latter, there are two operations sowing to obtain bulbils which will be planted in early autumn or early spring. You can also sow onions to harvest them and eat them green.

What is important in sowing?

Preparation of the seedbed,
It is the preparation of the soil that will receive the seeds. The fineness of this preparation depends on the size of the seeds. It should be thin enough to maintain moisture in contact with the seeds, but not too thin to avoid crusting effects.
The rotavator or the cutter are not recommended or just in finishing and surface.

The depth to which the seeds will be buried,
The general rule is that the seed should be covered with two to three times its diameter, which leads to very fine seeds being sown in boxes in potting soil.

The distance between the seeds,
Here it is the size that the plants will take that is decisive. The beginner often tends to sow too densely which requires thinning or transplanting.

· Water management (watering or rain).
This is the crucial question, the one that will determine the success or failure of sowing.
I always advise to sow after a good rain, as soon as the soil is dry, or failing to water the soil copiously before finishing the preparation of the seedbed.
The reason is simple: The seed does not need a lot of water to germinate, just a little humidity in general (there are of course exceptions). Watering immediately after sowing is often harmful. The force of the water can disturb the small light seeds. Moreover, when the granulometry of the soil is very fine, there is a risk of crusting.
We just seal* the seedling and wait a few days to water when the seedling begins to sprout.

What do we sow at this time?

Almost all vegetables directly in place, radishes, turnips and turnips, parsnips, beans, carrots, cardoon, leeks, cabbage, etc. For some vegetables such as cabbage or leeks, we sow in the nursery because the plants will be transplanted.
On the other hand it is too late to sow what fears the heat like peas, beans.

Of course we can also sow flowering plants for the summer such as nasturtiums, cleomes, cosmos, marigolds…

Different kinds of seedlings:

In flowerbeds (on the fly or with a seed drill or with a card), in lines, in pockets.

Labeling:

This is an important operation because sometimes the seeds take a while to germinate and it is always good to know:

What variety is there,

The date of sowing to monitor emergence

For this you can use labels or small stakes (sticks) when you hold a book on which you write all the necessary information about the seedling.
Normally, each gardener has his labeling code, that is to say the geographical positioning of the labels in relation to the cardinal points, the slope or the access. The important thing is to always respect the expected order because human memory is rarely reliable enough.

* Plumbing: operation which consists of lightly packing the soil to establish good contact with the seeds. For large surfaces, the filling becomes the rolling.

Ask all your questions during the gardening program on Sunday morning on France bleu Isère from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. by calling 04 76 46 45 45.